There aren't very many ways that this Roberto Luongo saga can end. For the second consecutive year, questions surrounding Roberto's future will be the centre of discussion at Canucks training camp, but for now, it appears he'll be there.

“It’s okay to say you’re going to trade someone,” he says, “ but then trade him. If I want to sell my car, and I want to get a good price for it, I don’t say my car is always in the garage. There’s something wrong with it. No one will want to buy it. You either say your car is the best car you ever had – or you say nothing.”

It would be ridiculous to suggest that Gillis hasn't mishandled this thing from Day 1, and the Canucks goaltender controversy goes all the way back to Game 3 of the Western Conference Quarterfinals in 2012 against the Los Angeles Kings, when then-coach Alain Vigneault all but decided that down 0-2 in the series, a chance of starting goaltenders was necessary.

In a funky twist of fate, the only person involved with the Luongo situation to see negative financial ramifications is Gilles Lupien, for whatever reason. We can be happy knowing that we have potentially nine more years of Luongo, and nine more training camps speculating about his future. It was mishandled from the start and reflects poorly upon Gillis and Laurence Gilman who tried to sell their car through the media and simply didn't. The addition of Mystery Teams certainly didn't help.

But there are a lot of moving pieces. I'm still not convinced cap recapture is what caused Luongo to become untradeable, the Toronto Maple Leafs' change of personnel and philosophical shift didn't help, even though I was never convinced that the Canucks and Maple Leafs were good trading partners. There's a lot to ruminate about this process, but we have a lot of time to do that.

As for the "walk away" route, it could still happen next season. The Canucks also still have one compliance buy-out they can use next offseason, so there are still ways it can end. With the team's public unwillingness to deal Schneider, the process looks remarkably botched from the outside, and it was never fair to let a human being suffer in that regard.

Cam Charron is a BC hockey fan that writes about hockey on many different websites including this one.

"If the cap-benefit recapture clause had existed in the last CBA, the Luongo deal wouldn't extend as long as it does not because all parties expect Luongo to retire before his contract is up, but because it's merely a possibility."

How exactly do you think the contract would have been structured then?

Luongo was getting his money one way or the other.

If you want to ignore the last 4 years of the deal when the money tapers off, it is an 8 year $57 million contract.

The league approved the deal. If the government thought you were evading taxes it wouldn't let you continue to do what you are doing with its stamp of approval. It would stop the process immediately and demand payment. If the league acted in this manner, the contract never would have existed.

As for the tax/interest deferral argument. When you defer payments you do so with the intention of paying them back in the future. None of the teams that signed these agreements did so with that expectation.

This is more like the government making changes to the tax code that burden tax payers for previously made decisions.

I think Vancouver and the other teams involved thought they were working within the legal framework that the league agreed to with the players.

No team would've signed those contracts with prior knowledge that this would be the result.

To argue that the cap recapture rule does not harm the clubs that signed the contracts, you would have to argue that the teams would still be willing to sign them now that they are aware of the rule. I don't think you can argue that even one team would.

"To argue that the cap recapture rule does not harm the clubs that signed the contracts, you would have to argue that the teams would still be willing to sign them now that they are aware of the rule. I don't think you can argue that even one team would."

I assume you mean that IF these clubs could still sign Luongo-like contracts, right?

In any case, I completely disagree.

Why wouldn't NHL teams want an interest free loan that would be paid back when the cap is significantly higher?

GMs in particular would be in favour of this. After all, what are the chances Gillis is around when Luongo's cap hit is recaptured?

There is one team and one team only that should be excessively pissed and it's not Vancouver:

http://www.tsn.ca/nhl/story/?id=333690

The Devils did what Detroit, Vancouver and other teams did, albeit to a greater extreme, and were the only team actually "punished", I'd argue.

My only point is that of course Luongo's retirement would have been taken into account by Canucks management in the sense of "even if he doesn't play through to the end of the contract, it's no-risk". The league just threw that on its head. Do you really think the Canucks would sign a contract like that wherein they'd risk a significant cap hit if Luongo were to retire a year or two before his deal was done?

Gillis isn't the only one signing cheques. A contract like this, Aquillini has a hand in it without a doubt. Do you think HE would sign off on this?

I'm not saying it wouldn't have been a back diving contract, but I would bet ridiculous amounts of dollars that the last few years of that contract would not be on there. As soon as the ink was dry people would be pointing out the stupidity of signing a contract like this precisely because it handcuffs the Canucks later.

If Gillis signed this exact contract in the hypothetical "last CBA including cap recapture" scenario, the deal would've been received with even more people unhappy with the deal, and likewise fewer people happy with it. It would legitimately be a complaint that if Luongo were to retire that the Canucks would be stuck with the cap recapture hit.

This isn't just proper accounting, it's a "don't screw with the league" warning from the NHL.